Haliburton
by Softbrush
Summary: The deceitful crew of The Black Pearl wind up in a different place then they had been knocked out in. They meet up with a wily teenager who nearly beats a few of them into submission, and startles the rest with her updates, all before the week it out.
1. Narrator's Comments

Haliburton  
A  
Pirates Of The Caribbean  
Tale  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own Pirates of the Caribbean. I do not own Koehler, Twigg, Bo'Sun, Grapple, Jack the Monkey, or any other character written about (Oh, and I don't own Barbossa, nor do I own Ragetti. If I did I would be a very happy girl. Muwahahaha! :] Mmmyes, I do have a sick mind. Thanks for noticing).  
  
Summary: The deceitful crew of The Black Pearl wind up in a different place then they had been knocked out in. They meet up with a wily teenager who  
nearly beats most of them into submission before the week it out. Don't ask me how; I have author powers! Boredom strikes yet ensues in an amusing yet frightful tail. The time is set in the Golden Age of Piracy and Privateering (1700s), three years before the cursed pirates meet their end.  
  
Narrator's Comments  
  
Barbossa had never been one to believe in fairy tales, or the lesson they taught you. Nor had he ever acknowledged a ghost story or warning. That is, of course, until he had picked up a piece of the Aztec gold seven years ago and discovered it indeed, held a curse behind it.  
The odd thing did happen to the odd sailor, yet he always seemed to turn a blind eye to it (two eyes, actually) and dismissed it as a coincidence or a simple accident. However, when one is suddenly thrown six feet into the air and slammed against a wall by nothing in particular, one is forced to wonder. Especially, if you held onto consciousness long enough to see the same strange fate befall your entire crew.including the monkey!  
Bloody Hell. He damned fate and hell and.and, well, anything he could muster up in his groggy mind, which was conjuring up some of the strangest colours he could ever have imagined (this should be acknowledged by the reader, as Barbossa did indeed wear a turquoise band-rag around his head and under his hat, the particular shade leaning more towards green then blue).  
Now that I, the narrator, have infused your minds with such a little wave of knowledge, know this: The tale you are about to hear is one that is so horribly, amazingly, incredibly.Well, I wont justify those adjectives. But, please, do prepare yourself for a most irregular tale. 


	2. In Which Jasper Aquants A Viscious Teena...

Haliburton  
  
A   
  
Pirates Of The Caribbean  
  
Tale  
  
Disclaimer: I do not own Pirates of the Caribbean. I do not own Koehler, Twigg, Bo'Sun, Grapple, Jack the Monkey, Pintel or any other character written about from the movie POTC:TCOBP (Oh, and I don't own Barbossa, nor do I own Ragetti. If I did I would be a very happy girl. Muwahahaha! :] Mmmyes, I do have a sick mind. Thanks for noticing...*sobs* I want a pair of pet pirates!).  
  
Summary: The deceitful crew of The Black Pearl wind up in a different place then they had been knocked out in. They meet up with a wily teenager who nearly beats most of them into submission before the week it out.   
  
Don't ask me how; I have author powers! Boredom strikes yet ensues in an amusing yet frightful tail. The time is set in the Golden Age of Piracy and Privateering (1700s), three years before the cursed pirates meet their end.  
  
Chapter One  
  
Jasper Acquaints A Vicious Teenager To Some Nervous Pirates   
  
"Captain? Captain...?" Ragetti poked the captain of The Black Pearl, his captain, Barbossa, with the end of his unloaded pistol, wondering if the captain was truly dead or simply unconscious. He was also wondering how any of his crewmates could become unconscious in the first place. Ah, well, he supposed it wasn't his place to know; after all, he was just a one-eyed cabin boy. Well, he was a pirate but was treated like a cabin boy.   
  
The captain didn't stir after a moment, and after careful consideration, Ragetti took his overly large and false eye out, cleaned it off on his grubby shirt, and proclaimed so that the other five conscious pirates could hear, "I think he's dead."  
  
"You can't kill him, or any of us!" Ever the supportive shipmate, Pintel lashed out at Ragetti, and swatted him over the head with the flat of his cutlass. He sneered cruelly and patted his rounded girth as his matey flew forward by the blow, nearly collapsing over the captain. Ah, what an inopportune moment for the captain to awake.   
  
With a squeal, Ragetti scrambled up, stepped on Barbossa's stomach, nearly lost his eye, which he hastily stabbed back into its socket, and tripped backwards, knocking a grumpy yet conscious Koehler over. Koehler tossed his chin-length braided hair over his shoulders before pushing the unfortunate cabin boy forward and nearly re-crushing the captain.  
  
"Mangy, greasy-haired inbred!" Barbossa shouted hoarsely, regretting sitting up so quickly (yet when somebody steps on your stomach it's a natural reaction to throw them off). The captain staggered uneasily to his feet, glancing around and only seeing Pintel, Ragetti, Koehler, Grapple, and Twigg (and even though he wasn't part of the crew Jack the monkey was indeed conscious) awake, gave a frustrated growl of annoyance, and went to lean against the railing of the Pearl.   
  
"Get the others up. I want to find out what happen...'d..." Barbossa had begun to say; yet his voice had trailed off dramatically, his eyes looking out at the scenery off the ship. Instead of ocean that he had remembered being on last, there were trees. Many deciduous and coniferous trees, their leaves or needles a lush green colour, and their bark a healthy brown.  
  
"Where...?" Barbossa inquired with one word, his five conscious crewmembers only shrugging and murmuring the odd "Dunno, sir..." Jack scrambled up onto his shoulder and gave a few screeches, leaping onto the rail and flicking his long tail absently.  
  
The shore was not far off, yet he couldn't see any beaches or any other ships or boats. Nothing, except a rather rocky and grassy shoreline, a cliff to the port side, and the dark waters below were hardly deep enough to accommodate a ship the size of the Pearl.   
  
Grapple looked behind himself, to the rear of the ship. The stern was facing a larger part of water, and it was then he realized they were in a bay. He scrambled to the other side of the boat, nearly knocking Twigg overboard (Twigg straightened himself out indignantly and ran his fingers through his sparse beard, muttering a 'Bloody pirate" under his breath), only stopping when he collided with the railing. He straightened his brown pants and white shirt out before adjusting his woollen toque over his head properly.  
  
"We're in a bay, sir!" Grapple called back over his shoulder; looking to his left to see a long, slightly narrow stretch of water, a few bays curving off the sides of it. He heard Barbossa's footsteps race over to stand beside him, his boots clunking on the wooden planks of the ship's deck. He, to, looked over the railing and sucked in a harsh breath through his teeth as he saw what Grapple saw.  
  
"It's a lake," the captain said quietly, grinding his teeth forcefully. "We're in a lake."  
  
Ragetti was attempting to awaken a few of his crewmates when he heard Barbossa mutter that word. Lake? They were stuck on a lake? How could that have happened? Dropping his task, he grabbed Pintel by the sleeve and dragged him over to where Grapple and Barbossa were standing, Twigg not far behind in the running. All three pirates looked over the rail. After a moment, Ragetti took the time to look ahead of them, and not to the side.  
  
"That's imposed, er, impossible! There ain't no river that the ship could have drifted on to get 'ere!" he remarked frantically, leaping up and down a few times and pointing ahead, where another bay seemed to deck off the one they were in. A bay where piles of mud, foliage, sticks and logs were piled together in random spots by the shore.  
  
"What are those things?" Koehler, who had finally trailed over to join the group, inquired in an uninterested way. He squinted to see them clearly, before remarking, "There's an otter-like beast moving above one of 'em."  
  
"It's a beaver, moron," Barbossa spat, "A furred beast that..." Again, he sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth. His conscious crew members looked at him expectantly, and he swallowed lightly before commenting, "A furred beast that lives in fresh water. We ain't near the ocean any more." He tapping his chin with his left hand, the tight black leather glove the stretched over his hand yet ended at his knuckles and wrist making him look rather thoughtful more than concerned.  
  
How lucky could she have gotten? The cottage, to herself, for a month! A month! Well, not entirely to herself. She was having a party in three weeks no doubt, but...the family cottage, including a kitchen, a washroom with a shower and sink, a den, three bedrooms, a living room with a satellite TV, running water and electricity! It was...Well, for a sixteen-year-old girl, it was simply perfect.   
  
Of course, it did have its drawbacks. She was alone, had to cook for herself, clean up after herself and sense her mom absolutely hated her two cats they were with her. Locked inside...with the den as their litter box. Oh joy...Ah well.   
  
Isolde's cottage was, to say the least, a traditional cottage trying to update itself. The kitchen, with it's brown and white tiles, fridge, stove, sink, counter, table and chandelier dangling over it was connected the another room. The 'living' room. It had an incredibly old, brown carpet, two futons, a coffee table, two small tables (one with a phone on it, the other with a lamp), a new TV with a VCR that had cable. A door in the kitchen connected the den. The den had the same ugly brown carpet, a futon, a table and lamp, and the only wall was the one that separated it from the kitchen. It was just window after that. There was a door that had once lead to stairs going down the sloping hill the cottage was built at the top of, yet they had long rotted away and a five-foot drop awaited anybody who ventured outside the door.  
  
The bedrooms were simple; one bed, one table, one lamp, and one dresser with six compartments, and an ugly, sparse red carpet. One bedroom at least had a bunk bed. Wahoo?   
  
So, clean that up, cook for yourself, and take care of two outdoor cats trapped indoors, and it's a whole house of fun. Chaotic fun, that is. However, when a teenager is left alone in it, for a whole month, and has some friend with cottages near-by...Well, chaotic fun does indeed apply!  
  
The hill the cottage was at the top of sloped down to a drop in the lake. The dock that belonged to her cottage was old, rotting away, and out of the four barrels that kept it afloat, two were sunk. The floating dock that was anchored about twenty-two feet out from the mainland dock was new, however, and had only one sunk barrel.  
  
Bitter lake, the lake was called. It was polluted by acid rain and there fore rendered the water un-drinkable, the fishing was poor, and it was so deep it was freezing cold most of the time. It had no rivers connected to it, yet was refilled by natural springs on the lakebed. There were hardly any cottages there; one on either side of Isolde's cottage (both belonging to different sides of her family), and a few others in the bay across the lake. Across the lake, the short way, that is. Bitter lake was also very long, yet slightly narrow. At the exact opposite end of the lake, there were two bays. Beaver Bay was the smaller and deeper one. Beavers often make their damns there, and the land was slightly swampy at shore. The bay connected to that one was Dead Man's Bay. It was shallow with a large cliff. Sunken bits of docks and other debris often floated down there, even when there was no current to take it. No one had an explanation why, but they all said it had something to do with the fellow that had died in the bay some time in the seventies.  
  
Fred Gallagher was the poor lad's name. He was in his thirties when he first strutted up the cliff from the small bit of land you could call level shore that was at the side of the cliff's base. He walked right to the top were he kept his booze and drug stash. Naturally, after a few drags and a few bottles, he fell, and plummeted to his death. His corpse had wedged itself under a pile of large rocks at the bottom of the bay, and when people had tried to pull him out, most of him was stuck and left behind.  
  
It was a famous tale, and Isolde's family of crazy partiers loved the tell it. They were self-dubbed 'The Legend Keepers Clan' of Bitter Lake. Ah, but they were indeed known through out the country Bitter Lake was in. Haliburton! A very farm-inhabited place, it was considered up north by city folk, considered down south by true northern folk.  
  
Isolde shuffled a pack of cards idly, gazing at her two cats. The orange shorthaired tabby was named Cisco while the black Scottish fold answered to Jasper. Both great pets, Cisco being a better people-feline then Jasper, who was rather grouchy and clawed anything and anybody except Isolde. The reasoning for that was she was the only one who fed him.   
  
"You guys want out, poor beasties..." Isolde murmured quietly, running a hand through her hair. Isolde was pale white with brown-gold hair that she had died dark blue, black and dark purple (all in streaks of course, so her natural colour was still there to see), and stood at five foot five. Her hair was braided, currently, random strands falling out, yet concealed by her black bandana with silver swirls on it. She was skinny and rather underweight, which her metabolism was to blame. She had a rare stomach disorder, which was rather an inconvenience to her. Her metabolism worked so fast, that she could eat her entire body weight in food one day, and only gain a pound or two. Which posed a rather deadly thread; sugar shock. She couldn't miss a meal. Another inconvenience.   
  
"Ah, well, I do take medication to help it..." she would tell anybody who questioned her about the topic. Gazing absently at her cats, which were clawing at the base of the thick wooden door into her cottage, she sighed and gave in.   
  
Getting up, she strode over to the door, turned the brass knob, and poised her hand over the metal handle to the screen door. After a moment of careful consideration, she went back to shuffling her deck, sitting down at the kitchen table, a foot away from where the miffed cats sat.  
  
"You are not going outside, kitties. You'll get mauled by a racoon or a ravage chipmunk." She smirked at her own joke, and turned her back for a split second. Then she heard the ripping sound. Whirling around, she reached out and caught the left hind leg of Cisco, who was half way through the screen door's screen. The rip in the screen looked like claws had caused it. Cat claws. Isolde dragged Cisco into her arms and frantically searched for Jasper. Locking the orange ball of fluff in the den, she scrambled over to the kitchen table where her black jacket was. The rolled the sleeves so she had large cuffs, the brass buttons flashing nicely in the sunlight, and slipped the jacket over her dark grey shirt.   
  
Glad she was wearing broken in blue jeans and a belt that actually fit, she scrambled outside, locked the door, stuffed the keys in her pocket, and ran off the porch, down the wooden steps, and onto her cottage's front lawn. She strolled hurriedly up the dirt drive way, past the large fire pit and two logs that had been carved into more comfortable seats, and scampered down the steep road that lead up to her driveway.  
  
"Jasper!" she called out a few times, and was answered only once. A far off meow came from the bushes, and the black Scottish fold dodged onto the road. It took off in the opposite direction, towards the other end of the lake. With a gasp, Isolde fleetly scrambled after it, her feet nearly silent on the dirt road. She passed the small lawn that a part of the lake joined evenly with, and glanced up the hill where many rocks and branches stuck out on the other side of the road. The old cottage that had been on the top of the hill had been vacant for years. The owners one day just stopped coming to enjoy the place.   
  
Jasper meowed somewhere up ahead, and Isolde started walking quietly, searching with her queerly coloured eyes. They were an odd shade of ashy blue, the pupils surrounded and circled with an amber colour. Many people mistook her eye colour for grey, but alas her irises didn't produce colour, and were thus blue.  
  
She walked for ten more minutes before she came to the end of the road. Jasper meowed somewhere up ahead, in the thick forestlands beyond the road's ending point. She stopped suddenly, and realized that ten more minutes of walking, and she'd get to Dead Man's Bay. Jasper let out a screech up ahead, and the prospect of her beloved cat being hurt propelled Isolde forward, branched reaching out and scratching her jacketed torso and arms, her panted legs, her hair, and her unprotected face.   
  
She grinded to a halt at last and called out to her cat. Jasper looked around himself lazily, his emerald green eyes stopping to stare at Isolde. He stretched smoothly before walking towards the water's edge. Then, he scampered back, yowling. A split second later, a loud crack shattered the air and the earth, moss and leaves that jasper had been standing on a moment before suddenly erupted and flew up in scattered pieces and chunks. Isolde suddenly realized; a gun had been fired. A gun had been fired...at her cat?!  
  
She whirled around to look at the rather giant, large, old fashioned ship in the bay, and stood dumbfounded for a moment, staring in awe and surprise at it. How had it gotten on the lake without her noticing? How was it going to get out?  
  
BANG! CRACK!  
  
And why, exactly, where they shooting at her and her cat?  
  
"Mangy greasy-haired inbred! Stop shooting at us!"  
  
On board The Black pearl, Ragetti stopped loading his pistol and shooting, only to stare at the person on shore, holding the small black blob. What had it just called them? The insult sounded so familiar...  
  
"Hold y'er fire!" Barbossa suddenly spat, lashing out at Twigg and whacking him forcefully over the head. Unfortunately for Twigg, he happened to be leaning far over the railing at the bow, a little to the side. Before he could even yell in protest, his gun fell from his hand and he went overboard, a loud splash a few moments later confirming he had fallen off the ship.  
  
"Bloody hell, you idiot!" Koehler screamed down at Twigg, who was splashing and crying out for help.  
  
"Swim to shore, you moron!" the person on shore yelled at him. Doing an awkward sort of doggy-paddle, Twigg eventually made it to the rocky shore and dragged himself out of the chillingly cold water, sopping wet and shivering. He looked up and got a good look at the person he had fired on, their lone figure standing in a rough hollow in the woods.  
  
She was only a young lass, wearing rather odd clothing and carrying a black cat in her arms. ...Black...cat? He suddenly felt around his belt for his pistol, and only managing to find his sword, tugged it from his belt and whimpered in fear.  
  
"You witch! You, you and y'er cat, you brought us here, didn't you?" Twigg squealed, his knees practically knocking together in a combinational shiver of fear and cold.  
  
By that time, a large portion of the crew had woken up. Each one was gazing around themselves in bewilderment, asking those that had woken up earlier what was going on, and why Twigg was on shore talking with a person.  
  
Barbossa suddenly made an order, and Ragetti, Pintel, Koehler, and Grapple (and Jack, who was suddenly refusing to get off Barbossa's shoulder, much to the captain's annoyance) were lowered down in a jolly boat into the water. A few moments of rowing, and the bow of the rowboat scraped against the shoreline. Every man jumped out, Barbossa leading the march to where a soaking wet Twigg stood shivering, his sword drawn against...  
  
"A wench? Your frightened of a bloody wench?!" Barbossa cuffed Twigg over the head, yet the pirate was too cold to actually realize it. He simply dropped to his knees, sword thudding on the ground beside his leg.  
  
All the other pirate's eyes widened considerably. Ragetti made a squeaking sort of gasp, while Pintel and Koehler exchanged shocked expression. Grapple straightened his cap uneasily, eyeing Twigg wearily. Barbossa stared at Twigg for a moment.  
  
"How is it that y'er cold, sailor?"  
  
Twigg simply shrugged, shivering violently as he wrapped his wet-shirted arms around himself. "How am I supposed t'er know, eh? It wasn't like I wanted t'er fall into the water..."  
  
Ragetti, who seemed to be the only one to ever look around himself in a situation (regardless of such, he always seemed to be first blamed for the situation, in the first place), spotted the girl in the odd clothing, with a small black cat with weird ears in her arms. Didn't witches carry black cats?  
  
"I bet it's her who dun it," Ragetti said matter-of-factly, pointing to the girl. "Her an', an' her black kitty."  
  
The girl suddenly burst out laughing, nearly crushing the feline in her arms as she convulsed slightly. She shook with the sidesplitting pain from the force of her giggles, yet managed to squeak out "I ain't a witch..."  
  
Now it was the pirate's turn to laugh. Even a shivering Twigg managed a frozen grin and a quiet couple of chuckles. Pintel strutted forward a foot and bent down slightly so he was looking at the girl eye-to-eye.  
  
"So what's a wench doin' with a black cat if she ain't a witch?"  
  
SMACK! Pintel hadn't even seen the hand coming. He did, however, feel the horrible stinging in his left cheek. A few white streaks were left across his face, and he absently rubbed them after recovering. Apparently, he'd been slapped.  
  
"I ain't a wench, you snot-nosed, flea-infested, rotten toothed mangy inbred milk-sop! How dare you!" the kid screamed at him, bringing her hand back to slap him again, but the cat wriggled in her arms and she ended up holding the struggling feline with both hands.  
  
Barbossa snickered quiet for a second before shaking his head and 'tch'ing a few times. He pushed Pintel absently out of the way, the pirate over-balancing because of his slightly large gut. After Pintel fell away, Barbossa strode coolly up to the girl, his eyes narrowed slightly as he tried to stare her down. She was, unfortunately, mimicking his stare, quiet well at that.  
  
"What's y'er name, lass?" he demanded, allowing his right hand to ease over his sword's handle.  
  
Isolde had never seen such a ridiculously dressed, motley bunch of people in her entire lie. And she knew her dad's side of the family! She had also never noticed the sword or dagger or weapon each man seemed to be carrying in their belt. Seemed? Oh no, they were indeed carrying weapons.  
  
The tallest of the men with the large feathered hat demanded her name, rather rudely, and she turned her face to the side to stare at him with her right eye.   
  
"Why on Earth would I tell a complete stranger with a cutlass in his belt my name? Y'er one of the cults that stalk little children, ain't you?"  
  
Apparently the comment had dumbfounded most of them, except the feather-hat man. He snarled and scooped his sword out, and Isolde was faced with a rather sharp metal point pressing lightly into her throat.  
  
"I'll only be asking you one last time, lassie. What be y'er name?" Feather-hat man growled, his eyes narrowing into slits. Isolde narrowed her eyes back at him, taking a step back so the sword was no longer pressing into her skin.  
  
"Isolde," she said quietly, her lips curling back to reveal her teeth a bit. She tried to cross her arms over her chest with a bit of difficulty and ended up dropping Jasper. The feline hissed in protest and sat down at her feet, making an odd guttural sound at the pirate with the sword.  
  
After a moment of careful consideration, the man seethed his sword back into his belt and sneered full out at Isolde.  
  
"Odd name," he commented loudly, and the rest of the men cackled gleefully around him in hushed tones. The monkey on Feather-hat's shoulder suddenly let out a screech, and leapt down from the man's shoulder. It went right at Jasper, who let out a wild ripping caterwaul and leapt back at the monkey, claws unsheathed and paws slashing.  
  
"Jasper!" Isolde cried out in an attempt at scolding her animal, yet her voice came out rickety and more concerned then angry.  
  
"Jack..." Feather-hat man suddenly scolded the ape, which limped back, making whimpering noises. He climbed up the limbs of the greasy-dust brown haired one-eyed man and began beating his little fists on his head, much to the man's protests.  
  
Both humans looked up at the same time to stare at each other's faces. Feather-hat man grinned at Isolde, who grimaced visibly.  
  
"Me name be Barbossa, captain of yonder ship, The Black Pearl. The monkey is named Jack, while his toy is called Ragetti. The fat slob over yonder starboard side is Pintel. The black dark braided-haired dog is Koehler. Twigg be the shivering git, and Grapple is the idiot with the woven hat. There be more of us'ns onboard the ship."  
  
"Goody."  
  
Isolde tilted her head oddly at the man called Barbossa. The ship, the huge grand ship with torn sails in Dead Man's bay was The Black Pearl? It sounded like a...  
  
"Pirates! Old fashioned pirates! In Dead Man's Bay! Pirates, in, in my bay!" she shrieked indignantly, causing Jasper to race and hide behind her legs as though it was the pirates who were yelling.  
  
A wench had never actually yelled at Barbossa, or a witch, for that matter. Nor had one ever slapped him, but today was the day a spot appeared on his record.  
  
SMACK!   
  
His hand flew to the spot on his face where the stinging pain was streaking through. Then, his hand suddenly dropped and he stood rigid. He stood very rigid. He felt pain. He actually felt pain! Okay, it wasn't exactly the first thing he wanted to feel when the curse had been lifted, but...he felt it none the less!   
  
"You...I...I..." he stammered quietly, absently fiddling with a corner of his blue coat. He felt that to, the softness yet grizzle from the grimy salt water and bloody fights.  
  
He turned around to face the other pirates that had come to shore with him. Ragetti was biting his lower lip, finally having trapped Jack by holding it by the scruff of the neck at arms length. Koehler had a very sly yet arrogant smirk on his face, while Twigg had stopped shivering to stare dumb-founded at Barbossa. Grapple had apparently been making his way back to the rowboat when he whirled around to see his captain get slapped.  
  
"I felt that," Barbossa announced. Twigg let out a scream of frustration and jumped up wobbly.  
  
"I feel cold, you felt the wench slapped you, cap'n, Ja-" he shut up suddenly, silenced by the odd glare that Isolde had shot at him. How could a bloody wench glare like that? It wasn't natural!  
  
"Where exactly are we, Miss Isolde, eh?" Barbossa, finally recovered, had turned back around with a straight back to face the girl.  
  
"You are standing in Dead Man's Bay, which is in Haliburton County, in Canada. Er, Haliburton is in Upper Canada in British North America. Take your pick of the centaury."  
  
And that is approximately when Jack suddenly landed on the ground, and Ragetti fainted.  
  
"I'm curious, how did you get that big of a ship to fit in the bay? How did you get it into the lake, at that?" Isolde questioned them, her answer being merely shrugs and 'Dunno's. With a sigh, she straightened her bandana, and stopped suddenly as her stomach growled.  
  
"Oh, I, uh...I'm going now. Hope you're gone in an hour." She suddenly whirled around, picked up Jasper and started walking with a very fast pace in the way she had first arrived.  
  
"Hold up, here!" Pintel suddenly called out to her, and Barbossa nudged his head to the side. Grapple shot off after the girl at the sign, who had looked behind her back at that exact moment. With a cry, she started running full out, yet ended up tripping as a gun was fired and the bullet hit the ground a split inch in front of her. Jasper let out a screech and ran ahead of her, dodging and weaving in the bushes.   
  
"She's down, maties!" Grapple called over his shoulder in a tone of success. He walked over and yanked Isolde to her feet by the collar of her two shirts. She struggled for a brief moment, and ended up punching him right in the nose. Then, after a moment of howling from the pain that stretched through his nose, he shook a suddenly limp Isolde. Grapple shrugged mentally and dragged her back to the bay, noticing there was a dirt road a few yards away from where he caught her.  
  
"Did you shoot her or something?" Pintel called out as he saw that Isolde was completely still, her head lolling to the side.  
  
"Nay, I didn't do nothing. She punched me in d'a bloomin' nose and then went all still-like." Grapple dragged Isolde forward and dropped her on the ground, where she landed with a hollow thud. "I didn't catch the witch-cat, though."  
  
Barbossa tilted his head and looked at Isolde, his eyes scrunched up slightly in thought. Her nose had started bleeding and her closed eyelids would twitch every now and then as though she was trying to open them yet couldn't. He had heard something of this matter happening before. What had it been called? He only recalled it had something to do with food. Perhaps it was a different form of scurvy. Hell, didn't she drink enough grog to stay healthy? Stupid wench, er, lassie.  
  
"Arr, just bring her aboard the Pearl, I believe she's got a form of scurvy," Barbossa announced, ignoring the curious looks. Ragetti woke up groggily a few moments later and gazed unfocusedly at the captain.  
  
"Why, sir? Pray tell, why doth this request confound the iota of our most formidable quest?"  
  
He shook his head stupidly, hair flopping limply around, and murmured, "I mean, why cap'n?"  
  
"Would you rather be here without a guide or somebody who knows the ways around 'ere?"  
  
Ragetti shrugged, staggered upright and stumbled over to the rowboat, where Twigg was already sitting, shivering violently. Koehler and Barbossa walked back to the boat together, leaving a disgruntled Grapple to drag Isolde back. After he struggled to pick her up and walk to the boat himself, he had only enough time to throw himself in and land unsteadily with the girl in his arms.   
  
"Bloody wench. Stupid witch. Damn cat prolly gunna curse us all."  
  
"We're already cursed," Ragetti said, almost cheerfully as he cleaned his eye off on his vest. "So it wont matter to much, unless it turns us all into toads, or badgers, or those beaver things and we have to make our homes out of mud and sticks and, and..."  
  
Ragetti promptly shut up as Pintel stuffed a dagger in his back and yanked it out again. Stifling a scream, Ragetti coughed apologetically and slumped forward to sit with horrible posture.   
  
"Well, at least we be still kind of immortal..." Ragetti muttered. Pintel frowned at him. After a moment of careful choosing of words, the chubby balding man sneered gleefully.  
  
"But we can feel things, Ragetti! Even better!"  
  
What about being mangy, fleshless, scary skeletons in the moonlight? Is that gunner stick around to? Ragetti thought, wincing, his back in considerable pain. Was that blood oozing down his back? Apparently, the other pirates noticed to. Joy...  
  
*For the Record...  
  
Bo'Sun-scary tall deep-voiced black pirate that has beads embedded into his face and walks around shirtless all the time.  
  
Grapple-The guy who told Will to "Say g'bye!" and then had a sign slam down onto him.  
  
Koehler-The smaller black pirate with shoulder-length braided hair who tells Barbossa, "Everything you've done has lead us from bad, to worse!".  
  
Twigg-The man with the cap who first addressed Jack while Sparrow was in jail, and then Barbossa yelled at him after he defended Koehler's point at the first blood ritual in the cave.  
  
Barbossa-Yesh, you dunno who he is? You need watch more POTC! He's the mutinous First Mate of Jack Sparrow's, who is...well...Evil! : )  
  
Ragetti-The one eyed tall and lanky pirate who was forced to dress in a dress by Bo'Sun. Elizabeth also dumped the coals form the bed-pan on him.  
  
Pintel-Ragetti's slightly 'smarter' if not more arrogant un-slim and balding companion. Throttled Ragetti after he said he looked good in a dress. Throttle Ragetti, eh? That's it, you get lemons thrown at you in chapter two! [nt]MUWAHAHAHAHA*hack cough choke gag*  
  
Jack the Monkey-The monkey named Jack. Need I say more? 


	3. In Which The Pirates Find Out The Year, ...

Haliburton

A 

Pirates Of The Caribbean

Tale

Disclaimer: I do not own Pirates of the Caribbean. I do not own Koehler, Twigg, Bo'Sun, Grapple, Jack the Monkey, or any other character written about (Oh, and I don't own Barbossa, nor do I own Ragetti. If I did I would be a very happy girl. Muwahahaha! :] Mmmyes, I _do_ have a sick mind. Thanks for noticing).

Isolde is my creation, and solemnly mine. If you want to use her, send me a review and at the end request. I'll get back to you.  Isolde's cottage isn't based on mine, yet the surrounding area is. Go my dedication and me to my precious Bitter Lake…my…pressssscious…

Summary: The deceitful crew of The Black Pearl wind up in a different place then they had been knocked out in. They meet up with a wily teenager who nearly beats a few of them into submission, and startles the rest with her updates, all before the week it out. The time is set in the Golden Age of Piracy and Privateering (1700s), three years before the cursed pirates meet their end.

Don't ask me how; I have author powers! Boredom strikes yet ensues in an amusing yet frightful tail. Not a Mary-Sue (heaven forbid…), just cute at times. Who could resist making fun of Ragetti? He's to easily moulded…Must be the eye. Muwahahaha…

Chapter Two

In Which The Pirates Find Out The Year, Fruit Pelts People, And Isolde Eats Very Good Eggs

Isolde blinked her eyes a few times, adjusting her sights to the dim yet existing light. She could only make out the wooden ceiling and the blurry shapes of lit candles on a desk or table. The air wreaked with the scent of salt water and seaweed, plus a dosage of old fish. 

She rolled over on her side and promptly fell off of whatever she had been lying on, and landed painfully on a wooden bowl with very lumpy lemons. It was then she realized her mouth tasted foul and the backdrop of something sour lingered.

The memories of the pirates and the monkey, Jasper escaping, the gun, and most of all, her stomach suddenly came back to her. Where she was, she couldn't tell, but judging by the hard wooden floor, she had a good guess.

"Ship…" she murmured to herself. A sudden voice nearly made her squeal with shock yet she only managed to weakly sit up and lean her back against the…whatever she had been lying on.

"Yah, The Black Pearl. Cap'n Barbossa ordered us to take you aboard after you passed out and all…" Ragetti answered her. There was a squeaking sound and Isolde realized he was cleaning his false eye.

"Oh, that's disgusting…" Isolde muttered, and a squelching sound confirmed he was ignoring her and had put his eye back in. "It's not even the right size for your socket…"

"Well, excuse me if I' rather have an eye then wear a patch…" Ragetti retorted cheerfully, popping his eye in and out a few times just to spite her. Squelch squelch squelch…

"Gross," Isolde muttered, and attempted to stand She got to her knees and fell back on a grubby fabric surface with a ratty blanket on it. A hammock? Sure felt like it.

"Well then, I suppose you've ignored the fact I could have choked to death and fed me lemons when I was asleep?"

Ragetti snickered for a few moments, nodding his head, as he couldn't talk through giggling. He tossed the lemon that had been in his lap to Isolde, who didn't catch it and instead got hit by the fruit on her chest.

"Ow, god damn it!" she swore loudly, curling an arm around the sore sport (which was a rather embarrassing point for her to get hit). 

"Oh, ah, sorry, matey…" Ragetti apologized quietly, yet would have taken it back in a moment had he known the lemon was coming right back at him. It smacked his forehead and his eye popped out with a slick sound. He squealed, "Me eye!" before lunging forward and catching it in his grubby left hand.

"Bloody, be careful!" he scolded a giggling Isolde.

"How'd you loose it?" Isolde inquired.

"Loose what?" Ragetti replied, cleaning his eye frantically on his (dirty) vest before carefully placing his false eye back in.

"Your real eye. How'd you loose it? Get it gouged out in a bar brawl or something?"

"You have a sick, er, sick mind, poppin," Ragetti curled his lower lip at her, but went on. "Well, I had to suffer to help get rid o' the curse that's on us'ns."

"Curse? What curse? I hardly believe in silly things as superstitions." 

Ragetti crossed his arms over his chest and sneered cruelly at Isolde, whose sight was clearing up and she was staring at his false eye.

"_The_ curse. We took a lot of gold; Aztec gold, a set of…of, 882 pieces, I think. It was cursed and we have to return all the pieces, along with some blood or something." Ragetti shrugged sadly, before saying, "A crew man knifed me cheekbone and eye so I went blind. My eye was messed up and mushy so I just got a wooden one."

Isolde made a disgusted face and wrinkled her features up, making a rather ugly expression all on it's own. She crossed her arms over her stomach uneasily and made a disgusted grunt.

"That is…utterly disgusting."

Ragetti continued sneering at Isolde, yet she wasn't paying any more attention to the lanky buccaneer. Looking around herself, she discovered salty smelling wooden planks. A few hammocks were strewn about, tacked onto the walls, while there were cots about, their wood looking like it was rotting before her very eyes. No blankets or anything that resembled comfort was in sight.

"It must get cold…" Isolde whistled quietly. Ragetti narrowed his eyes as much as possible.

"Well, we're cursed, 'member? We don't feel much…actually, we don't feel noffink at all."

Isolde raised a brow and looked at him oddly. She picked up another lemon and absently tossed it from one hand to the other.

"So if I flung this at you, hit you smack in the nose, you wouldn't feel it?"

"Well, f'er some reason we be feeling stuff now that we got here…" Ragetti mumbled uncertainly. Within a moment he yelled out a rather dirty curse word and leapt up, rubbing the spot on his forehead where a lemon had just bounced off, a large red spot appearing on his skin.

Isolde snickered, drawing herself up to full height. With a sneer, she commented lightly, "That's for giving me a horrible visual picture of what squished up lost eyes may look like."

She was abruptly cut off when the door to the (murky) large room (well, large enough to accommodate at least sixty people without difficulty) suddenly slammed open, and the fat and dirty man with grey pants and a filthy white shirt fell inside.

"What' goin' on 'ere? Why did y'eh cry out, Ragetti?" Pintel questioned suspiciously.

Ragetti wrinkled his nose at his companion, pointing to the basket of lemons at Isolde's feet. The girl shook as she tried to hide her laugher, disguising it as a rather well practised cough. Pintel growled and muttered something under his breath, yet it seemed to amuse his lanky friend highly, as Ragetti's face curved lopsidedly into a smile.

Pintel glared at his friend and picked up the lemon, which had rolled which the sway of the boat to about a meter away. He yanked the lemon from the ground, yet got pelted by a lemon from behind, on the behind. With a yelp, he whirled around to be confronted by an all-to-innocent whelp and a shaking with laughter one-eyed pirate. Pintel flung the fruit in his hand at Ragetti, missing the pirate by a good meter or so.

"Cap'n wants t'er speak whi'ch you, whelp," Pintel commented dryly, marching back out the door, a lemon flung by Ragetti striking him in the left ankle, causing him to loose his balance and fall onto his girth.

Isolde strolled onto the deck a precious five minutes afterwards, the bold little bitch that she was. Apparently, the anxiety of having to wait for so long had not rubbed off on the captain, who stood waiting patiently near the bow of the boat.

"Ah, Miss Isolde," Barbossa greeted her curtly enough, and she hailed back with a "Arr matey and avast…and whatever you guys say around…here." Blinking once and not at all entirely sure how to respond to such a greeting, he straightened his shoulder and sucked in his already thin stomach. The feather upon his cap flopped awkwardly to the side, yet at that exact moment a breeze blew past and corrected the plume.

"I called you up here to discuss a privilege I have prepared for yours truly to attain."

Isolde's right eye gave a very small yet noticeable twitch. Did he think he was fooling her? He had just been relieved of a curse he'd been under for seven years and counting. That, and he was a pirate. Like she was going to trust him for anything. 

"Seeing as I did happen to help you on your way to recovering from scurvy, I imagine you'll be happy to accept the offer."

"What is it, first, _mate_?" Isolde shot out at him. Barbossa grinned silkily, tilting his head to the side.

"A guide. My crew and I need a guide. You seem to know where you're running off to and fainting."

Isolde snorted, fiddling with a braided lock of hair for a moment before snottily commenting, "Well, if you had let me go sooner, I wouldn't have suffered Sugar Shock."

Barbossa was silent for a moment. Was that what the form of scurvy was called? Sugar shock? How peculiar, but never the less, perhaps it had something to do with…er, well…Yes.

"We fed you some lemons in y'er faint. Scurvy, y'eh see, comes from not consuming enough vitamin C."

Isolde snorted contemptuously, eyeing the captain with a look of superiority that he did not appreciate. His eyes flashed and his lip curled a bit to reveal a few teeth edges. Isolde, quite taken aback and frankly intimidated, cleared her throat.

"I didn't have scurvy, stu-I mean sir. I have a really fast, um, metabolism. You know, I digest things quicker then most and don't gain a lot of weight. I hadn't eaten breakfast when my cat, Jasper, the thing you shot at, ran off and I had to catch him."

Isolde paused for a moment, and fiddled with the tedious task of straightening her bandana. Clearly she was trying to frustrate Barbossa, and was doing a fine job at that.

"Well, out with it, girl!" Barbossa snapped, and a few near-by crewmembers looked up from their tasks.

 "Well, my stomach didn't like not being fed, and decided to make me faint and screw up my system a bit. Savvy?"

Hah! She had always wanted to use that word, ever sense she heard it one time on an old TV show called Pirate Islands. The opportunity, however, had never arisen. Ah, but it had arisen now…and the captain knew what it meant. Bonus!

"Ah, well, that was my, ah, second estimation, miss Isolde..." Barbossa lied with a smirk, doing a rather fine job of pulling it off. He peered at her oddly for a moment before his lips curled slightly to reveal a few teeth, and scowled. "What be y'er last name, lass?"

     Isolde hesitated for a moment, catching his rather nasty gaze. Quite frankly she was indeed intimidated by it, and an inner voice was urging her not to argue with confused, pirates just realised from a seven-year curse.

     "Bellamy. Isolde Bellamy, actually," she said, her voice carrying the small traces of arrogance to show she was boasting. 

     Barbossa went slack for a moment. Could it possibly be possible...? Well, he was cursed. Er, is, was, he didn't quite know at the moment. But a curse was a curse, and she had just stated one of the most notorious pirate's of the age.

     "Eh, as in Charles Bellamy?" Barbossa questioned quietly. A few of the ship's crew had stopped their work, and if they were near enough to hear the name, had started listening. Those who hadn't had already asked around.

     Isolde paused in a moment of deep thinking, scrounging for an answer. 

     "I had a great, great, great, great...er, really old grand father named Charles Bellamy, yeah..."

     Barbossa leaned back and heavily supported himself upon the railing of the Pearl. He stared at the child for a moment, his head tilted loosely to the side. How was it possible?

     "What year be it, Miss Bellamy?"

     "2003, Barbie," Isolde said, taking full advantage of the slackened pirate's slackness by slapping him a silly nickname.

     "It was the seventeen hundreds when we was last at the Caribbean..." Barbossa said quietly. A long moment of silence ensued, and the only sounds were that of the water lapping against the sides of the boat, birds chirping and leaves rustling.

     A door creaked open and Ragetti emerged from within the barracks behind it. He cleared his throat and with a smile said, "I believe she was about to agree to your request, cap'n."

     "Oh, right...Sure, we have an accord," Isolde said stupidly, realizing to late she remembered what the deal actually was.

     Barbossa grabbed her wrist and shook it roughly before she could say anything else, and without making another comment, he strode off, went up some stairs, and out of her sight. A door closed somewhere and work went back to normal.

     "What was that?" Isolde muttered to herself, rubbing her wrist idly with her other hand.

     "A pirate handshake. Encase you was hidin' a dagger or something up y'er sleeve," Pintel muttered from somewhere nearby.

     "Dun' worry, though. Cap'n Barbossa trusts you somewhat, otherwise you wouldn't be his guide!" Ragetti pointed out happily.

     The rest of Isolde's day was spent looking around the ship, Ragetti and (grudgingly) Pintel serving as her guides. Of course, she was continuously worried about Jasper and if he was going to be okay, if he was okay, or if a forest fuzzy had mauled him. And as one could guess, she didn't enjoy the tour. Being leered at by freshly un-cursed pirates was a rather significant putout. 

     The sun started setting soon enough, and the pirates began to get nervous, wondering if their skeletal forms would still take their body over. After all, they could feel, but judging by Ragetti's recovery rate from Pintel's stab, they still had the odd immortality 

"I have to go. Like, right now. Jasper's locked out and could possibly be wandering about in the forest. Cisco is out of food, I bet…" Isolde mused.

"Whose Jasper an' Cisco?" Pintel asked, absently fiddling with his cap.

"My cats. Jasper is the black cat you all tried to kill for some reason, and Cisco is an orange tabby I have at the cottage. I have to go."

"Cap'n Barbossa will have to know, but you can go wait by a rowboat in the meantime," Ragetti told her, walking the other way towards what Isolde presumed to be the captain's cabin. A long while went by and Ragetti re-appeared looking rather confused, beside him strolling Barbossa.

"You'll be showing us where this cottage of y'ers is, before we leave y'eh alone for the night, Miss Bellamy."

"Oh, yeah right. No way. You guys will ransack the place while I sleep," Isolde snorted indignantly, once again crossing her arms over her stomach (since at 13 it had become hard to cross her arms over her chest without feeling awkward. Damn puberty!). Unfortunately, Isolde was then introduced to the end of a loaded flintlock pistol pointed at her. With a moment of quick consideration, she ran the possibilities of spiting the pirates and letting them shoot her. However, that would render her dead. However, that rendering her dead would render the pirates guideless. However, that rendering her dead rendering the pirates guideless still rendered her dead. She did not very much feel like being rendered dead.

"Aye aye, Barbie!" Isolde chirruped, and within fifteen minutes she was in a boat, rowing towards shore with Barbossa, Ragetti, Pintel and a pirate named Nipperkin (which Isolde gallantly made fun of, not being able to resist the temptation of 'Nipperkin'.)

"Nipperkin…Hehe…Are you sure your mother was sober when she named you, Nippy? Or is it Nips? How about Nip-kin? Oh, I got it, Napkin! Hehehe!" 

Nipperkin, who had been raised well and educated (thus granting him a snobby-second class attitude) indignantly straightened his tricorner cap and flattened his brown hair, narrowed his hazel eyes, dust off his grey shirt and black pants, and merely (after performing a rather interesting fleet of cleaning imaginary mud off of his boots) turned his nose up at Isolde and sniffed.

"Hehe, snubbed…" Ragetti snickered playfully at Isolde, who gave him a very threatening glare, yet he missed the hint.

After the boat ride, Isolde led the pirates through the forest ("It's eerily dark here…" Pintel commented), down the dirt road Grapple had caught her ("It's eerily dark here as well," Pintel commented), the next road over which passed by a steep hill with cliff face in it (a cottage was at the top of the hill, long abandoned yet Isolde forgot to mention it easily) and finally arrived at the point where the road crossed her cottage's drive way ("It's eerily-OW!" Pintel commented, being hit over the head by Barbossa). She pointed out the bomb fire pit that was a few feet away from the driveway, and the tree that was a few feet away from that.

"Watch out for those if you plan to raid my place during the night," Isolde sniffed, and then pointed towards her cottage. "My place. Stay out, or I'll get my cats to maul you." Unfortunately, her joke wasn't caught, and Nipperkin whispered a rather nasty threat to her.

"So we just take the road back, go through the forest, and we're back to the bay, then?" Barbossa questioned, and Isolde nodded. Without saying goodbye or anything (well, Ragetti _did_ wave), the pirates turned around and marched off. 

Immediately, Isolde darted down the driveway, and nearly tripping up the porch steps, dug the key out of her pocket, unlocked the door, and flung it open. To her relief, Cisco was asleep on a chair, and Jasper had been hiding under the porch. He came loping up the steps and flung himself into the cottage.

Isolde locked the door, and didn't leave a window unlocked or a shutter a crack open. She was scared, and not prepared to let any pirates raid her home. She lodged a chair in front of the door, the back frame securely fitted under the doorknob. Isolde proceeded to locking her and the cats in the den (the 'litter box room'), and with only a comforter blanket, fell asleep on the floor, hiding under the futon. 

The sun filtered through the window and landed neatly on Isolde's face. Her eyes flickered open and she realized her head was sticking out from under the couch, verifying she had moved in her sleep. She yawned absently, groggily slithering out from underneath the futon and curling up on it instead. 

In persistence, the sunlight moved in only a few minutes and continued glaring onto her face. Isolde turned her face into the blanket, attempting to block it out. She would have been successful, had Cisco not leapt onto her back and startled her into a state of full awareness.

"Shit, cat…I had the wickedest dream…" Isolde murmured, turning onto her back and petting her cat absently. The orange tabby meowed and leapt off, peeved that she had moved and spoiled his position. 

Sitting upright, Isolde stretched her arms upwards, realizing she was still in yesterday's clothes, bandana included. She looked around and found she was indeed in the den.

"That's…interesting," she muttered quietly, getting up and padding to her rightful room. She undressed, grabbed a towel and went into the bathroom for a shower. Twelve minutes later, she emerged, dried herself off, got dressed, braided her hair into four sections, and picked out a new bandana.

"Kitties, vittles!" she called to her cats, resisting the temptation to pick either one up, quite positive they'd leave fur behind on her black polar-fleece vest, red turtleneck (sleeves rolled up, it being summer!) and blue jeans. 

Avoiding getting her black socks wet in a puddle that the cottage's water-keg had left the night before (nobody had yet figured out how to fix it, and they were claiming to be too cheap to buy a new one). Making her way to the microwave, she paused to grab three eggs out of the fridge and a small bag of cat food that lay beside the fridge. She tipped the bag over a bit and watched carefully as cat food poured out and onto a food dish for her animals. 

Afterwards, she put the bag away and cracked the eggs in a bowl, beat them and put the bowl in the microwave for two minutes.

"Scrambled eggs, Jasper," she tittered to the black feline that had begun eating it's own food.

"Anyways, as I was saying, I had a wicked dream last night," she continued her discussion with the cats, explaining how she had meet up with pirates in the bay.

"Then, when I woke up, I was in the sunroom. Weird, huh?" she said, grabbing the eggs out of the microwave and pouring a healthy dosage of ketchup (if you consider two cups of the stuff healthy…) onto her eggs.

She dug her fork into the bowl of ketchup (and eggs) and let out a squeak as the sound of someone knocking on her cottage door rang out.

"Not by the hair on _my_ chinny chin chin…" she muttered, half smiling at her own joke. _Meagan must have come up to her cottage! _Isolde thought. Meagan was her next-door neighbour at the cottage, and the two often visited each other's cottage to chat, drool over some hot actor dude, or converse about books they'd read. That or they'd avoid being ravaged by the pets people on the lake had.

Opening the door, she closed her eyes briefly and began to say, "Hey, I was just chatting with the cats," yet got cut off at "Hey, I was just-" by her voice getting jammed into her throat.

"G'Morning!"

"Ah shit."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hey hey, Softbrush here! Did you know that the legend of Bitter Lake is a real story? Aye, if you look in the Haliburton Ontario's archives, find bitter lake, and look back some decades, you'll find it. However, as nobody does that, and my family happened to like, knew the dude or something, we go around and scare the shit out of all the new people to our lake! Go Us! Wahoo! ; ) I'm experimenting with formatting this story. I can't get it right without screwing it up, so I may just keep it in Web format regardless the annoying gaps within paragraphs.

Pantherpiller: Keep reading! I'm glad you appreciate the fine qualities and consideration that has been put into …er, I am happy you enjoy this…story. Yes, story. 

Arrrg! On a side note, I found a kick-ass store that sells kick-ass pirate costumes. 120$, mind you…Happy Canadian Thanksgiving! Eeeiii!


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